‘We’ve got two choices,’ Kelson said to Phillips. ‘Either we put away my guns and I open the door and try to pretend we were talking about a job that doesn’t involve beating up and killing people, or we shoot each other and Detective Peters arrests Pipsqueak for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I vote for option number one.’
‘You fucked up big,’ Phillips said, but he opened the bottom desk drawer and laid the Springfield inside.
Kelson stuck his KelTec in his belt and said to Cushman, ‘Wipe your face.’
The short man wiped his bloody cheek with his sleeve.
‘You made it worse,’ Kelson said.
‘Fuck you,’ Cushman said.
‘I try to help,’ Kelson said, and opened the door.
Dan Peters stepped in and looked from man to man.
Kelson turned to Phillips. ‘Thanks for coming in,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we’ll be in touch – whether or not I want to be.’ Then he offered to shake Cushman’s hand, saying, ‘You really do have a winning smile.’ Cushman glared at him and followed Phillips into the corridor.
Peters closed the door. ‘What was that about?’
Kelson had prepared for the question. ‘They wanted me to do a job.’
‘Why was one of them bleeding?’
Kelson could prepare only so much. ‘I hit him.’
‘Yeah? Why?’
‘He bragged about hurting people who can’t defend themselves.’
Peters eyed him funny. ‘Great customer relations. I see why they’re lining up at your door.’
‘Funny thing is everyone wants to hire me lately.’ Kelson went to his desk. ‘What’s going on?’
Peters seemed to shake off the image of the bloody-cheeked man. ‘We traced the boat where we found Jeremy Oliver. A man named Jim Fitzpatrick owns it.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Fifty-year-old broker. Lives in Bannockburn. Money. Fits the profile of a rich doofus who’s got nothing to do with a murder. Just a schmuck whose boat had the bad luck of getting a body dumped in it.’
‘Except?’
‘Except a name comes up that you mentioned as you walked away last night. Turns out the broker’s got a background at the Mercantile Exchange, but for the past five years he’s worked for a company no one seems to know much about, called G&G Private Equity, which is owned by a man named Harold Crane. A friend of yours?’
‘I met him for the first time yesterday.’
‘Tell it,’ Peters said.
‘All of it?’ Kelson felt his resistance crumbling.
‘Every detail.’
‘You know better than to do that,’ Kelson said. Then he told it. He talked for more than an hour. He told him about Genevieve Bower’s stolen Jimmy Choos, melted in the back of Jeremy Oliver’s burned-out van, and about the thumb drive everyone wanted but no one would explain. When he detoured into Sue Ellen and Taquería Uptown, Peters guided him back. So Kelson told him about Oliver renting the attic apartment from Sylvia Crane’s husband Bruce McCall, about Sylvia being Harold Crane’s daughter, about Harold’s other daughter, Susan Centlivre, taking a year-long head-trip to England but then returning to the family fold more or less, and about the family relationship to Genevieve Bower. He started to tell him about Genevieve Bower dating Marty LeCoeur, which led to Neto, which led to – but Peters nudged him back to Jeremy Oliver. So he told him that the men who’d left the office when Peters arrived might have killed Oliver or know who did. He told him about meeting the men at Susan Centlivre’s house and finding them at his desk when he returned. He finished with a blow-by-blow account of their faceoff.
Peters looked furious. ‘You didn’t think you should tell me about them before they got in the elevator?’
‘I have no evidence they killed Oliver, or even met him,’ Kelson said. ‘But it seems like something they would enjoy.’
When Peters left, Kelson yanked open the desk drawer where Phillips had put the Springfield. He wiped the pistol grip and barrel, released the magazine, checked the rounds, and popped the magazine back in place. He put the gun back in the drawer. He took out his laptop and turned it on. Phillips and Cushman had spent only a few minutes in the office before Kelson came in, but he checked his work history to see if they’d opened any files. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t.
Then he yelled at the walls. He swore at Phillips and Cushman. He swore at Susan Centlivre. He swore at the Cranes and Chip Voudreaux. He started to swear at Genevieve Bower – then stopped and swore at Phillips and Cushman again.
Someone rapped on the door.
He swore at the door.
Someone rapped again.
He went to the door and tugged it open.
Steve from building security stood outside. ‘Is everything OK, Mr Kelson?’
For a moment, words tangled in Kelson’s mouth. Then he said, ‘Have you been letting a woman named Genevieve Bower into my office?’
Steve’s body looked like Genevieve Bower’s would if her breasts sank to her stomach. He blushed. ‘Yeah.’
‘Don’t ever do that again,’ Kelson said, and slammed the door.
He swore at the walls about Steve.
Then he called DeMarcus Rodman and told him about Phillips, Cushman, Susan Centlivre, the Cranes, and Steve. He also told him about Genevieve Bower vomiting in his wastebasket. He told him about the thin office walls, which kept him from yelling without disturbing others on his floor.
Rodman listened until Kelson spent himself, then said in his gentle voice, ‘Maybe you’re yelling at yourself. Maybe you’re upset because you let this get away from you.’
‘You think you’re smart, don’t you?’ Kelson said.
‘Yeah, I do.’ Gentle. Smooth. ‘Good-looking too.’
Kelson breathed hard. ‘Thanks for listening, though. What’s happening outside my own echoing head?’
‘Marty’s arranging Neto’s cremation for as soon as the cops release the remains. Meantime, Venus Johnson pulled him into the station for a couple hours this morning. When the cops picked him up, Janet freaked out and called me. So I called Ed Davies, and he went down and threatened them with his legal magic. Anyway, he busted Marty out. Marty says Venus Johnson grilled him about Neto – if Neto knew explosives the way he knew computers, any reason he’d blow up a library, any reason he’d hang out in Rogers Park?’
‘I thought the cops settled on Victor Almonte,’ Kelson said.
‘Seemed like it, didn’t it? But Marty says Johnson hit him hard, left and right. She knew about Neto hacking the Argentinian bank when he was a teenager and about some other stuff the kid did that Marty’d never heard about. But you know Marty. Johnson must’ve thought she could roll over him. He says he insulted and picked at her until she got mean. When Davies came to the station, she chucked Marty at him – probably glad to get rid of him before she did something that got her in trouble.’
‘What else?’ Kelson said.
‘Davies says he sprang Emma Almonte late last night. The FBI had her. I’m going to drive out by her house and check on her this afternoon. What about you?’
‘Doreen took Genevieve Bower to my apartment. As soon as she sleeps off her drunk, I’m going to do a Venus Johnson on her until she explains why the Cranes want her enough to send a goon squad after her.’
Rodman asked, ‘You think Phillips and Cushman would go to your apartment too?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Kelson said, though as soon as he said it he felt the possibility. When they were at Susan Centlivre’s house he’d even told them Genevieve Bower was in his bed, though no one had seemed to take him seriously.
‘Careful with these guys,’ Rodman said. ‘They sound smarter than they act.’
‘I never said they act stupid,’ Kelson said.
He hung up with Rodman and dialed Doreen.
When she picked up, she said, ‘Hey baby, you need to start hanging out with a better class of friends.’
‘What did she do?’
‘You said she’d finished throwing up. You underestimated her.’
‘My bed?’
‘I got her to the bathroom. Pick up sponges on your way home.’
‘Is she awake?’
‘Snoring like a bear.’
‘You need to move her,’ he said. ‘The men who broke into her motel room last night came to my office. They might check my apartment too.’
‘What if I can’t wake her?’
‘Do what you need to. Drag her down the hall.’
‘And into the elevator? And out to a taxi? Now you’re overestimating me.’
‘Get her down to the building basement. Hang out in the laundry room until I come.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘now you’ve got me doing your dirty laundry.’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘Call me when you’re in the basement.’
Kelson hung up, grabbed his KelTec and jacket, and left his office. As he rode the elevator to the lobby, he pulled his phone back out and watched its blank screen. He went out to the sidewalk, crossed the street to the parking garage, and jogged up the ramp to his car. He put the key in the door and checked his phone again. ‘Come on, c’mon,’ he said to the screen.
He drove down to the exit, shot out to the street, and cut around a slow-moving truck. He drove two blocks, glanced at his phone, and accelerated through a yellow light. When a red light stopped him two blocks later, he called Doreen’s phone. It rang and bounced to voicemail. ‘No way,’ he said, and hit the gas as the light turned green. Twice more as he drove to his apartment, he called Doreen’s number. Each time, it rang and rang and rang.